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36~ Vipassana Experience Part 5: Equanimity.

  • Writer: Ayelen Vittori
    Ayelen Vittori
  • May 14
  • 14 min read

Updated: May 15


How well-crafted is the cage that we still love to paint our prison bars on!The greatest secrets of cages are that they never seem like cages; they always disguise themselves as oases in the desert. And what if we open the little door for the hamster? So that every now and then it can peek outside the cage and remember that the cage has a handle and a latch. That occasionally one can enter, amuse oneself on the spinning wheel of colors that endlessly turns, but also laugh at it a bit, knowing that it's not real after all. And play, knowing that it's just a little hamster game. Funny, tiny, and inconsistent.

As a product of impermanence and the mistaken perception of reality (what Buddhism calls ignorance), we instinctively develop attachments and aversions. Things that become the center of our lives and things we avoid and want to banish because they don't fit our ideals well enough. Easily and without realizing it, our reality becomes divided into two camps in a binary world:

LIKE - DISLIKE GOOD - BAD PRODUCTIVE - STUPID REPEAT - ELIMINATE SUSTAIN - ERADICATE PRESERVE - SUPPRESS

And we could go on endlessly filling in here with our deepest weaknesses.

So, that simple phrase that Goenka repeated every second: "Accepting reality as it is" became, to say the least, difficult and complex.

We struggle to let go of the "illusion" because we still believe it gives us pleasure, and because thinking of ourselves without pleasure becomes strange and unbearable. But precisely the proposal was the opposite. It's true that at first it sounded a bit threatening, but the real invitation was to learn to free ourselves from that unbearable feeling of post-pleasure loss. Precisely that which is completely inevitable.

How well-crafted is the cage that we still love to paint our prison bars on! The greatest secrets of cages are that they never seem like cages; they always disguise themselves as oases in the desert. And thus, like thirsty madmen, we still cling to those tiny moments of pleasure, even though to achieve them we must traverse a desert of sustained efforts. But sometimes the cages seem safer, and even though they suffocate us, there we remain.

We still insist on holding onto the knife that caused the wound, just because we believe that the same knife also defends us when we need it. The two sides of the coin and the attachment that covers a question about loneliness that we still find difficult to answer.

« All attachment is suffering » Goenka said a bit dramatically.

Dramatic or realistic?

All attachment involves craving, desire, fear, and an endless effort to keep "that whatever" immaculate, trying to turn it into something it is not. Forcing it, a little more or a little less, and causing us at least unnecessary mental energy expenditure. What is certain is that sooner or later, what we try to hold immaculate and unchanging will naturally come to an end. Nothing can escape change, and therein lies the real problem, unless we are sufficiently aware of that detail.

Ultimately, death is the consecrated queen, and nothing and no one escapes that.



We are not particularly good at accepting reality as it is. Instead, we often do everything we can to make reality fit our desires or expectations. And those sustained efforts — often fortunate ones — only make us thirstier, more deluded, and even more convinced of our superpowers. But the higher we climb the ladder of our Ego, the blinder we become, and the harder the fall. We forget that we do NOT have control, we forget that each moment dissolves, and that change is a universal law far stronger than our actions.

Imagine how inflated our Ego and confusion must have become to cling so tightly to the constant in a world of pure change! In the end, if we pause to think about it for a moment, it's a path guaranteed to lead to suffering.

Does it sound a bit fatalistic? Perhaps that's why Buddhism has been mistakenly labeled as pessimistic, when in reality its sole purpose is to shed light on this persistent, unsolvable problem that touches us all.

The good news is that there seems to be a possible solution from this perspective: Open the little door for the hamster so that every now and then it can peek outside the cage and remember that the cage has a handle and a latch. That occasionally one can enter, amuse oneself on the spinning wheel of colors that endlessly turns, but also laugh at it a bit, knowing that it’s not real after all. Enter to play whatever game each one chooses, but with more wisdom and a different awareness that leads to less suffering. Play, knowing that it’s just that, a little hamster game. Funny, tiny, and inconsistent.

Because in the end, a problem doesn't disappear just because we choose to ignore it. And if there's a painful problem, who is the real fatalist? The one who hides it at the cost of perpetuating it, or the one who exposes it, at least to be aware and try to do something about it, at the very least, something a bit more effective when possible.

After seeing the cage from the outside, it seems smaller, more manageable, and even more harmless. This dose of real reality doesn’t prevent us from living or enjoying momentary pleasures, quite the opposite. It seems we can actually do so with more pleasure! Knowing their true nature and appreciating them more for it:

If it’s going to change anyway, let’s make it worthwhile!


From that vantage point, with the winds of freedom that come from sitting and watching the cage from the hilltop of awareness, everything looks different... with more light, more distance, and a unique beauty. Contrary to what we might believe, we can actually enjoy life more if we understand that the slice of cake we love won’t last forever, and that perhaps for this very reason, it’s worth twice as much! And the same goes for everything else, relationships, love, identities, ideal work, possessions. To appreciate without attachment , that’s the great challenge.

Once again, impermanence and equanimity remind us that this cake is not happiness itself, that it is simply a delicious piece of cake and nothing more. It doesn’t define me, my happiness doesn’t depend on it, nor on its absence. It brings me pleasure, it’s delicious, and we can enjoy it, but it’s still just a changing, finite piece of chocolate cake.

From this perspective, we might start to live with more enjoyment and love for everything that appears in our lives as a true gift, because that’s exactly what it is. What’s here today might never have appeared, what’s here today might not be here tomorrow, and most importantly, we are not superpowered nor in control. So everything that happens to us should be met with double the gratitude.

Knowing that everything is in constant flux gradually eats away at the demands of the ego and makes us more human, finite, and mortal, without any of that being offensive, quite the opposite. It allows us to move more lightly, more freely, and with less of a need for consistency. And damn! Without all that weight, being alive is so much more worthwhile! ___________________

The word Vipassana means "clear insight into reality," and that was precisely what we aimed for through the sustained practice of deep introspection. Training ourselves to observe and understand change, the nature of suffering, and the absence of a permanent self, all within our own bodies. Enough theory, because Buddhism is a practice. It’s not for philosophers or scholars, it’s a way of life.

They were showing us a path to liberation from this wheel of suffering. And with this understanding, to act towards it with the greatest equanimity possible, trying to eradicate desire, attachment, and ignorance — the causes of suffering — or at least to head in that direction, better equipped and more aware. And to experience it, because the only true knowledge is that which we gain through our own direct experience.

We were about to put all this theory into practice in our battlefield: our own bodies, for 10 hours each day. Pain, aversion, desire, expectations, frustration, attachment, and ignorance. The full combo, all on our battle cushion. That was the “training.” That was the practical side of Vipassana — now I understood why we were doing what we were doing.

Okay. It had finally captured me.

Where do I sign?


Beautiful Day 4.

I had gone to bed different and woke up even better.I was starting to understand. This whole thing about inhaling and exhaling had a purpose, and I was beginning to perceive just how deep it went. It felt like someone had cracked open my mind, and now I had a reason, a true motivation. Now I actually wanted to give it my all. There was a cause more than promising.

I got up a little earlier — yes, even before 4 a.m. I went to fetch some hot water in the early hours to make myself mate - the argentinian tea- , purely with the practical aim of being a bit less drowsy for the first two hours of meditation. I stepped outside to take a walk through the garden in the freezing night, jumping around and doing a few warm-up moves to shake off the sleep. My mind had changed. Now I genuinely wanted to do this.

"Work hard, with consistency and perseverance, but also with calm and kindness."

What wisdom it took to maintain the balance of all that. Not to fall into the attachment to those pleasant sensations and those moments when meditation “worked” and felt gratifying and beautiful. But those moments were neither the majority nor were they stable. That wisdom to remain equanimous, to stay constant even when I might still drift off to sleep, or when I might still have to stand up because my back simply couldn't take it anymore. How much understanding it took to walk back into that hall with a positive attitude, with joy, hope, calm, and above all, with love. Especially love, to recognize the effort we were putting in here, instead of lying around somewhere in the world, watching Netflix and eating chips, or worse, stumbling home drunk, collapsing into bed to forget about everything that was happening. Here we were, trying to tip the scales in a different direction.

The secret was in accepting the present as it is in that very instant, and the challenge was to step away from binaries and expectations. Without anger, frustration, or avoidance, because acceptance was the only possible way to do something different. And in the end, it was also the only way to stop suffering constantly: for what isn't, for what wasn't, or for what will never be. Sound familiar? Here we are, the Drama Queens.


I was starting to realize that everything happening in that Gompa and within my body was life itself. And when I understand, I am a lethal warrior. I had braided my hair as a symbol of my strength and was ready to fight the battle of acceptance — all the things I hadn’t done in the past four years. In my mind, I was almost preparing for ninja training.

And so, with that warrior attitude, I walked into the hall that morning, only to have to step back out into the courtyard to shake myself awake once more around the 40th minute of meditation. But THIS TIME, with the awareness, pride, and love needed to give my all, because as a friend would say:

“You only step back to gain momentum.”

That morning, I felt a beautiful experience. Suddenly, a calm I had never known washed over me, and a pressure on my face slowly spread through my entire body. And then I felt as if I could fly... still sitting there in the Gompa in my meditation position. I felt myself rising. I felt the speed and the air parting at my sides, as if I were slipping into another reality, another plane, or some other “something.” It was too real. I had to open my eyes to check that I was still sitting there and to make sure I wasn’t going crazy — and also because the speed my mind-soul was reaching started to scare me. My body felt like a kind of triangle cutting through to some beyond I couldn’t quite identify, in the darkness of a deep night sky. I was suspended, piercing through spatial layers.I stayed there, savoring it for a while. I didn’t reach any destination, the elevation had no end, but my body... my body flew.


“I did it!” I thought. I didn’t know exactly what, but I did it. Something had happened! Clearly, I hadn’t grasped anything from the previous talk... but it was a perfect example of how our senses and sensations can so easily rule us. And just so you don’t get the impression you’re reading the reflections of a Buddha incarnate, I’ll admit that this was the only time I ever felt something like that. But it happened. That incredible sensation would become the very thing I would need to detach from in every subsequent meditation session, returning to the simplicity of just observing my breath, once again, without attachment or expectation.

Ten hours of meditation was a lot. All I wanted was to make it through with a bit of dignity, not much before the liberating bell rang.

Most of the meditation time was just silence, but a few minutes before the end — especially in the longer blocks — a song would come on. It was Goenka chanting something in Pali, the language of the Buddha.The chant is called Metta Bhavana (the transmission of loving-kindness), a series of phrases expressing wishes for peace, happiness, and liberation for all sentient beings.

The first time I heard it, I laughed a bit on the inside. Imagine a 65- or 70-year-old man, not exactly a virtuoso, singing sounds that felt like mantras in a language that wasn’t even Hindi or Sanskrit, it was something else. He would hold the vowels until he ran out of breath, but still, hold them with the dignity of someone singing something sacred.

“This must be a joke,” I thought the first time I heard it. By Day 4, though, I had gotten used to his chants. We had come to an understanding, of sorts. That song had become the background music that played at 6 a.m. through the loudspeakers as, triumphant after the morning meditation, and with the first light of day, we made our way to the dining hall. I had no idea what the words meant, but even now, two years later, I remember them with such immense love that it still gives me goosebumps.

But there we were, sitting in the Gompa in the final minutes of the session, that exact moment when your body truly can’t take it anymore, when you’re silently begging for the bell to ring so you can stand up and end the session with your head held high (hello, Ego!).And just when you’re about to crumble, that song would start. That song, sung by him, which lasted almost 10 minutes but, in that state, felt like a thousand.

On the one hand, it was a relief when it began, but very quickly you’d remember that it was almost endless... that it always seemed like it was about to end, but then it didn’t... it would start again, and again, several times over. With tears in my eyes, I would beg my body to hold on, that we were “almost there,” that we were so close to becoming heroes, because — oh! I forgot to mention this: properly entering the Vipassana technique involved trying not to move at all from your position, if possible, for the entire one or two hours of the session.

No shifting, no scratching your ear, no stretching.

We had reached the advanced level.



Equanimity

That suffering we talked so much about, the one life inevitably brings, we were about to experience it firsthand. Those ten daily hours of meditation weren’t purely arbitrary, it were an intensive opportunity to give your body a solid dose of survival training. Everything the Buddha conceptualized about reality, the Vipassana technique invited us to experience directly in our own bodies. To return to the fundamental elements, to the raw sensations, to the perception of every one of those physical pains, which by this point had become nearly unbearable. That stabbing pain in the shoulder blade, that numb leg, that aching neck, the back fragmented into zones of pain that rose, fell, moved, and transformed. These were the “elements” we would work with.

“It is nothing but discomfort, and like everything in life, it is temporary and will pass as quickly as you give it the necessary attention.”

The necessary attention. Exactly what we never want to give to our pain — to observe it. So, what do we do? How do we react? This is precisely where the key lies: WE DON´T REACT. We throw our automatic mind off balance and give it a solid dose of deconditioning, or to put it more poetically, we offer it conscious freedom.

We simply observe it with equanimity. We give it the chance to reach awareness, allow it to expand to its fullest, to take up all the space it needs, until, by natural law, it disappears... like a cycle.

This is what those hundred men and women were trying to do that winter in Bodh Gaya: to overcome our own minds, to breathe and take control so we could begin to act with wisdom and diligence. Or at the very least, this was our direction and our intention.

We were working with the body, but we were going much deeper than that, we were touching the very logic and nature of life itself: If we can stop reacting automatically to the most basic impulses of discomfort in the body — and even more, if we can at least become aware of how we react and how we experience it — we can gain a certain freedom from the cycle. The start of the unraveling.

We can perceive with a bit of distance. We can find a pause to understand our emotions, to strip them of the weight and drama we so often assign them, but which, objectively, they do not possess. It is just discomfort, and like everything, it will change form. With this understanding, we can take a step back, gain perspective, practice equanimity, observe from our center, not from our desires or aversions. Return to our axis, to some axis, and see what happens there.That alone, it seems to me, is a huge piece of ground gained.


“This too shall pass,” Goenka would say in his video talks, and I knew that story well because it was one my father had told me since I was a little girl, without even knowing it was a Buddhist tale, “The Tale of the Two Rings.”

The story goes that a king died, and his two sons found what their father had hidden as his legacy. In a small box, they discovered a dazzling diamond ring and a simple silver band. As usually happens, the older brother chose first, claiming the diamond ring for himself, thinking it better suited his age and maturity. The younger brother, by default, took the simple silver ring.

"I understand why my father would hide the diamond ring — it seems very valuable. But why hide this plain silver ring?” he wondered. Then he examined it carefully and found a few words engraved on it: “This too shall pass.”"This must be my father’s motto," he thought.

Both brothers went their separate ways, and like everyone else, they faced the ups and downs of life.When summer came, the older brother felt ecstatic, losing the balance of his mind. And when winter arrived, he would fall into deep depression, easily shaken by external changes.

Meanwhile, the younger brother who had taken the silver ring enjoyed the arrival of summer. He didn’t try to escape it — he savored it, reveling in it, but always looked at his ring and remembered: “This too shall pass.”And when it did, he would smile and say, “Well, I knew that would happen. It has changed... so what?”

When winter came and the days grew short, cold, and bleak, he would look at his ring once more and remember: “This too shall pass.” He didn’t cry or suffer because of it. He knew that too would change, and so he endured it. And indeed, those harsh nights never lasted forever. They too changed, they too passed, just like the longed-for summer.

Whatever the ups and downs of life, whatever difficulties he faced, he always knew that nothing was eternal, that everything passes, that everything arises only to fade away.He never lost his mental balance, simply observed the changes as a natural part of life, and smiled. And so he lived in peace and happiness.

The other brother, the one who clung to the material as the ultimate truth, was not so lucky.

This phrase was a reminder that both joys and sorrows are temporary, that both will pass, that neither will last forever. That we should enjoy the good things, because in the end, they too will disappear, and have the courage to endure the bad, because, like the good, they too will not last forever.

Impermanence and equanimity. To inhabit the present, to contemplate today, and to find in it the calm, the anchor, and the happiness of life.

That, in essence, was the teaching of Vipassana meditation.



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